Sunday, November 22, 2009

Anne Scripps Douglas

Anne Scripps Douglas: proof perfect that money doesn't buy you everything.

In fact, Anne Scripps Douglas is proof perfect that money might not even buy you life, let alone a happy one. As the name might alert you (Scripps was Anne's maiden name, the Douglas came from her second husband) she was one of the heiresses to the Scripps newspaper fortune: a fortune well up there with the Hearst's and so on.

But being born into money didn't lead to that long and happy life we might think:

New York state police believe the daughter of slain newspaper heiress Anne Scripps Douglas jumped to her death from the same bridge her stepfather did after he killed her mother.

Police on Friday were searching the Hudson River near the Tappan Zee Bridge, around 25 miles north of Manhattan, for the body of Anne Morell Petrillo. Authorities say they found a note and believe she got out of her car on and jumped off the bridge Thursday evening.

Petrillo's mother, the great-great-granddaughter of Detroit News founder James Scripps, was beaten to death with a hammer in Anne's bedroom by her stepfather, Scott Douglas, on New Year's Eve in 1993.

Douglas fled and jumped to his death from the same bridge. His body was found three months after the slaying.

Somehow people who make their money seem to do better with it than those who inherit it.

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